Pledgin in Turkey = Again it's baggy pants

The Race - Part 2 Rick's Point of View

Here is the Race from Rick's point of view - The race is towards the end of this video.

Click to view The race part 2

The Race.

Rick Steves blog about the trip

June 2nd Images

Just a collection of photos from June 2

Good Morning and Goodbye Eruope

As I enjoy my real last breakfast of the freshest breads, the most natural tasting Tang, farm fresh eggs and coffee that could wake up a hibernating grizzly.  I reflect upon yesterday.  I did a lot, the best Archilogical museum ever, Hadrian's library, the Roman Agora, musical instrument museum  the central market with more version and stages of butchered animals than I have ever seen. (out of consideration to my vegetarian friends I will not post it and I rode around on busses, trams and metros to far flung places and blindly explored them.

I past a lone old guy  sitting on a corner out side of a teashop. Before him was a cup of tea, a backgammon board and an empty chair.  He had the come sit down play a game or two look on his face.  I kept walking.
that image haunted me all day.  What kept me from sitting with him? Simon and Garfunkle's song “Old Friends” (or is it called bookends? It is on bookends and begins with the bookends theme) ran thru my mind.
That evening as I hopped from neighborhood to neighborhood I watch people that were alone,  they never having as much fun as those that were with people. So it seemed.

Last Breakfast

Technically my second to last breakfast, but tomorrow I get up go to the airport and begin my trek home.

As I munch on stale breads and look up at the Acropolis from my fifth floor breakfast perch, I think of all the breakfasts I have had on the trip. I really miss cucumber, tomato, olive, hot hard boiled eggs.

My body is feeling tired today — I did a lot yesterday 13.5 miles of hiking up and down through trough Athens.

Back to missing cucumbers. Do I miss them because they are really good for breakfast or do the just remind me of an earlier time when the trip was young and not on it last breaths?  I trust the true answer is both. Of course the word on the news is that Spanish cucumbers can kill you –  so much for being philosophical.

Looking around Athens from this vantage point, looking at temples, the Pantheon, old markets I still struggle to grasp that Western  Civilization began here. That the citizens of ancient Athens had fun.  Real lives –  people going to work, going to concerts, plays, shopping , playing sports.  In reality I sometimes have the same problem with modern civilizations that I don't understand.  Travel helps me connect those dots.

I wonder if I ever left home.